Taylor Swift effect ‘disenchanting’ NFL fans: Tony Dungy

NFL

By Jared Schwartz

Tony Dungy thinks Taylor Swift is hurting the NFL.

The Hall of Fame coach, now an analyst for NBC, was asked about a poll that showed less than 25 percent of Gen Z-ers consider themselves “avid sports fans.”

“I think we’ll always have sports in some form or fashion,” Dungy told Fox News. “Some people are disenchanted with it.”

Dungy was then asked about Taylor Swift, whose romance with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has taken the NFL by storm.

“That’s the thing that’s disenchanting people with sports now,” Dungy said. “There’s so much on the outside coming in. Entertainment value and different things that’s taking away from what really happens on the field.”

Swift is expected to be in attendance at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday night when Kelce’s Chiefs host the Dolphins in the wild-card round, with potentially-historic lows in temperatures throughout the game.

The Grammy-winning singer has been a regular at Chiefs games this season, attracting plenty of attention during the broadcasts.

Page Six on Thursday reported that Kelce and Swift plan to get engaged this summer.

The defending Super Bowl champions struggled in the second half of the season, losing five of their last 10 games.

Kelce was part of it, failing to reach 1,000 receiving yards for the first time since 2015 after choosing to sit out the team’s regular season finale.

Star quarterback Patrick Mahomes was visibly frustrated at times and was seen berating both referees and teammates.

“We play a lot of big games — games on short rest, night games — and having that experience will help,” Mahomes earlier this week. “A lot of guys on this team have done that, so the step up you see going into the playoffs, we make it a little smaller, because we’ve been in games like this.

“We can rely on our experience and be the best team we can be.”